Mean
by maliwanhellfire
Summary: Mordecai is an asshole, Lilith is his BFF, Roland is the nice one and Brick is Sir Not Appearing In This Film for more chapters than he'd like.
1. Welcome to the Planet

Pandora wasn't hell, though it was as hot and vicious, and strange. It was a planet blasted by sun, with a surface that was dry and desolate. It'd been less of a horror once, but that was before summer had come and all the planet's children had come out. They'd left ghost towns in their wake. That was what Mordecai had been told. Only the disturbed lived on Pandora, either because they'd always been touched in the head or because she'd made them that way. There were more guns than living people on the planet, now. He'd heard there was also far grander fare than that, hidden away where the stupid and weak could not find it. This was exactly why Mordecai was going there.

Mordecai had some sympathy for all the poor saps that had been eaten alive by monsters. It was just that his sympathy neatly walked alongside his willingness to benefit from their misfortune. Dead man didn't need a gun anymore, or his wallet, or his shoes (if those shoes did happen to fit other people's feet). Why waste? Didn't the Lord hate waste or something like that? Mordecai was doing a public service.

Unfortunately, he was not entirely alone in this ideal. When he'd bought a one way ticket to Pandora, he'd had to wait six months for the shuttle to fly because Dahl had pulled its mining operations. There'd been a glut of rushed evacuations at first, and people paying top dollar to get to Pandora quickly to search for their lost loved ones. Mordecai had been busy on a job at the time and hadn't cared too much about it. Afterwards tickets were cheap and gossip about potential windfall was endless. There were two other people on the shuttle who had heard exactly the same spiel he had and Mordecai didn't feel like sharing the spoils with either of them.

One of them was a great troll of a man who couldn't fit into two shuttle seats comfortably. He had a large, bald head that surely made for an excellent target from half a mile away. He'd made his own brass knuckles out of screws and wore a dog paw around his neck. He also looked half-witted, which Mordecai would have respected had he any faith that the other man was acting. Mordecai had overheard him talking to the only other passengers on the ship about looking for a sister, which made him a complete idiot, as far as Mordecai was concerned. That sister was dead, probably in pieces and dried out like jerky.

If he gave any signs of causing Mordecai trouble or getting in the way, Mordecai was going to shoot him. Once they landed. From a safe distance. Mordecai himself was a slim man, he preferred to think of his build as lean, and the troll had at least a foot on him in height. One of them was an easy target. The other was a finer marksman than such a target deserved. Not that he was biased.

The second passenger was a woman with bug eyes and unsuitable field gear. When she bent over, Mordecai could see the crack of her ass until she adjusted her pants. It was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. The pale skin above her cleavage was bare, including the flesh above her heart. She was impractical to an extent that was almost offensive, she was even wearing makeup. She also pouted a lot.

Mordecai probably wasn't going to bother with her, though he had no doubt something else deal with her and in short order. She'd get mascara in her eye while she was aiming and wind up firing blind or the wind would blow her hair in her face and she'd be eaten by something with big teeth.

If this was to be his competition, Mordecai was honestly offended. Of course, that was usually the case when it came to Mordecai and competition. No one else was as good as he was. Fact.

"You sneer a lot." The woman, the sad competition, said.

"The wind changed. I'm stuck this way." Mordecai replied smoothly.

She laughed. He wasn't sure if she was feeling him out or if she was trying to unbalance him before they landed. He wasn't going to let her achieve either, if that was her goal, so he gave her some of his attention. Her laugh was throaty and not high or giggly (annoying).

"I wasn't expecting so many people to be on this shuttle."

Mordecai didn't reply.

"You're not looking for anybody, are you?"

He shook his head.

"I suppose if you were, you'd know they were skrag meat."

"Skrag?" Mordecai raised a brow, though the woman wouldn't have been able to tell beneath his mask.

"Pandora wildlife, very common, I can show you pictures if you like." The woman smiled. "They eat anything; ammunition, guns, money."

"Bastards."

"Except you can get it out of them again, you know." She mimed a shot at the ground between them. "Pow."

Mordecai leaned forward, arms resting on his thighs and his hands loosely clasped. The woman smiled at him.

"They also have these enormous spiders, tarantulias, and giant lobsters that spit venom at you. I'm quite looking forward to seeing them."

"Hmm. That does sound like a bag of laughs." Mordecai did not yet know that she had gotten the names of every animal wrong. "You're a trophy hunter?"

He could far more easily endure the rest of their ridiculously long flight if she was on it for a slightly different reason than he was.

"No."

Ugh. Grand.

"I'm looking for the vault. And so are you."

The look he gave her was positively venomous. He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.

"Oh, stop being a big baby."

"I am not." He said petulantly.

"I've been watching you. You and I, we have the same goal, I'm sure of it." She sounded as smug as he normally did, which gave him a warm but nervy feeling in his belly. "But we don't want the same things."

"Don't we, now."

"You can only carry so much. And I've heard of you. You're a sniper."

"This is creepy."

"I bet that if anyone got near you while you were reloading, they'd have you. Even if you're quick, you can't take on too many people at once with a gun like that." She paused for effect. "Or monsters. You need backup."

Mordecai's hands were twitching, hungry for something to do. She was staring at him knowingly, a look he could not return. His skin felt tight. He was vexed, because she had picked up on some of his (very few, negligibly there) shortcomings. The bitch. She'd swiped into the travel itinerary. It wouldn't have been hard to trace him from there given all the competitions he'd been in and won (or should have bloody won). He wished he'd thought of it. Well, he had, but he'd assumed it wouldn't be worth the effort. She'd circled around him while wearing low-waisted pants.

"And what exactly can you do that makes you such good back up?"

He couldn't help his glacial tone. His curled lip tingled and the air pressure around him changed. The woman was gone. He hadn't even blinked, she'd just vanished, with a sound like a ship engine warming up.

She reappeared in his lap, mimicking his usual smirk perfectly, which was impressive since it had just disappeared from his face.

"Siren." He said, managing to keep his voice level.

"Lilith." She replied.

"Mordecai."

"I like to stick to SMGs, I'll let you have all the best sniper rifles because I am wonderful like that. I think we should be friends, for fun and profit."

Mordecai suspected she was going to rob him blind. But his breath was quick and his mind was racing past that thought. She was special, and think of all the money he could make with the help of a woman who could disappear. He wanted to pull a knife on her just to see which of them would win. He wondered what it would be like to be friends and enemies, switching from one to the other ten times a day.

"I have conditions."

"Name them."

"Buy some real goddamn pants."

And then he dumped her on the floor.

* * *

"Who's a good boy, you're a good boy! You get a treat."

Mordecai had a pet. Though, he wasn't so much a pet as a working animal; a silent partner who almost always listened and liked going in for the kill as much as Mordecai did. Mordecai had named him Bloodwing because he was a bloodwing and simple names were sometimes good ones. He was something like a bird but obviously entirely removed from the aves. Mordecai'd had hawks before and they'd been smart enough but nothing like Bloodwing. Not many people owned bloodwings, because they were honestly a little ugly to look at (leathery wings, oily feathered necks, claws long as carving knives), and hell to train. Even Mordecai could admit he'd had a few teething issues, culminating in a long scar that ran from clavicle to sternum. Entirely worth it, of course.

Bloodwing reached the small scythid and neatly severed it into five chunks of meat. The xenobird screeched and flew back toward the station, neatly landing on Mordecai's forearm. It shifted its tail feathers for a moment before preening and Mordecai reached up to scratch his chin.

Lilith clapped from a safe distance away.

"I cannot believe you treat that thing like it's a dog." She said, arching her brows. "Don't they kill people?"

"Me and Blood have an arrangement."

"You named your dog, 'dog', original."

"Do not disrespect the bloodwing."

The xenobird hissed at her and Mordecai was gratified by her flinch. He'd had it with being impressed by her amazing magic disappearing act; now he had something impressive to show off. Now it was two against one, which were odds that he preferred.

He raised his hand and Bloodwing took to the air, circling above them and relishing the chance to spread his wings. Mordecai felt a little sorry for him, he'd been stuck in a hold with nothing to do for a long time. He threw a piece of rabbit in the air by way of apology and Blood caught it at the top of its arc in the sky.

"Oh, Mordy, you're just a big softy under those goggles, aren't you?"

"Watch it, he's still hungry and I'm feeling mean."

"If you sic him on me I'll cook him."

"You wouldn't!" Mordecai mimed offense, touching his glove to his chest and looking hurt.

Lilith flipped him off.

They were still at the shuttle station, had been for one Pandora day. There was a bus due but not for another 60 hours and they were finding it hard to fill the time. The station was on the least hospitable piece of rock that Dahl had been able to find, and for that reason it was devoid of bandits, skags ('skags, Lilith,' Mordecai had said), shade and pretty much anything but rakk and under-sized scythids. Mordecai had thought them plenty big when he's arrived, only to be told that they got bigger'n people and no one really knew how they managed the dry weather out west, where they were. Mordecai could see for miles, which was unusual from ground level, and all he could see was shale and heat shimmers. That and the station but he preferred not to look at it at all. It was ugly and falling to pieces; only the main hangar was in any sort of good repair.

Shit, he wasn't sure how he'd get off the planet if he wanted to. That was disturbing.

"Fair, fair Lilith, I fear my faith in the abundance of this rock is misplaced."

He put the scope from his rifle up to his eye. He could see rakk. He traced the messy lines of their flight and thought about shooting down every single one in turn. He'd been told not to by the station staff. It would bring them close to the buildings where they might cause damage. Too fucking late. He was so bored…

"Give it time." She said.

She moved back under the patio, taking some small refuge from the sun and none at all from the heat. Her pale skin was already grimy with dust. When she rubbed the sweat from her brow, it left streaks. Mordecai was amused that she had finally given up on eyeliner. One of her tubes had already melted in her back, putting black streaks on her clothes. She'd called it cheap shit and sworn a blue streak.

Mordecai followed her and sat on the same bench as she did, watching as she checked her machine gun over and grimaced at the state it was in. She couldn't clean it while they were outside and inside wasn't much better. They were both at a loss for how to keep their weapons in the perfect working order they deserved.

"How should we mark the time, now we're here?" She asked.

"My watch runs on a 25 hour day. I can switch it."

"How about 30?"

"Works."

This was what they had been reduced to. Making small talk and planning small plans while they waited to go somewhere. Mordecai pulled his sword from its sheath and twirled it around his fingers. It was almost too hot to touch comfortably with bare skin.

"You're going to lose a finger and I am going to laugh."

"Whatever, witch."

"Laugh and laugh and laugh, and laugh."

The bus arrived a day early, and when Mordecai, Lilith and the troll got on it, the soldier boy was sitting in the back.

* * *

There were very specific reasons why Mordecai liked Lilith and only one about Soldier Boy. Lilith was funny. She was also vicious and good with a gun. She was easy to talk to because she liked these same facets in Mordecai. He knew that they were going to have an incredibly enjoyable time running up and down Pandora, doing jobs, making money and being pithy.

Soldier Boy was physically attractive. He had full lips, a squarish jaw and sharp cheekbones. The muscles on his arms could've been sculpted in stone. His skin was a warm brown, not yet lined by age. His chest was broad, his hips narrow and his ass round and high. That was all he had to recommend him.

He wasn't even Mordecai's type; he was just easy on the eyes. At first Mordecai had thought that the other man was one of those silent folks. Mordecai would've even liked that. It was always pleasant to be around people who didn't feel the need to run off at the mouth. Of course, it turned out that when Soldier Boy felt like opening his, he was a regular chatty Cathy and genial to boot.

Mordecai had no truck with genial.

It was driving him halfway up the wall. Even worse was the fact that Lilith seemed to find him half amusing and was willing to engage with his prattle, which meant it increased in quantity even as it became more banal. Soldier boy used to be a soldier, which meant he would always be a soldier. Mordecai hated soldiers because they had a whole hierarchy that had nothing to do with talent, far as he could tell. Lilith thought soldier boy was cute. Lilith liked to annoy Mordecai. Mordecai wanted to kick Lilith in the junk.

The ride did not end soon enough. Even the driver was annoying, going on and on about the vault and making digs at Mordecai's hair. Although he did find it slightly more bearable when the other man made cracks about Lilith baking them pies. As if she would have shared.

Then he heard her voice, for the first time.

"Don't be alarmed." The woman said, smiling sweetly. "I need you to stay calm and don't let on that anyone is talking to you."

Pandora turned people mad, he'd known it, he'd been warned. He'd accepted he might take a turn himself and hadn't cared much. It was just that he'd thought he'd have more time and more fun first. He'd only been there a few days and he was hearing voices. Even worse, he was seeing things, shining in the corner of his eye. He was receiving orders.

He couldn't let Lilith know.

The voice was soft and gentle, even pleasant, and she was kind of pretty in a very blue-skinned way. Her hair flowed around her and over her face, obscuring her features. He really couldn't see the benefit to telling the other two about it. Although, panicking was looking a little attractive.

She told him to get off the bus and something about robots, Mordecai had really stopped listening to her after the second sentence. He filled in her words with a steady chorus of "la la la la, la." He clenched his right hand into a fist and counted down the seconds until, finally, the voice and the image went away.

When he got off the bus, Lilith close behind, there was a robot there. Which was just dandy. He couldn't even be sure if it was real or just another part of the greater visual mirage from moments before. He decided to ignore the thing, turning to Lilith only to find that Soldier Boy had hopped off the bus with them.

"Hey, how you doing?" Soldier Boy asked, smiling and looking wholesome.

Mordecai just shook his head at him. He was not going to be baited into being chipper. He turned his attention back to the little mechanical marvel. It was one of the crappiest things he'd ever seen in his life. The robot was a box with a little wheel beneath it for rolling around and two little arms that were thin as twigs extending out the sides. It also had a lens on its front, which resembled an eye. Every word it spoke had a little flourish to it. The little 'bot managed to exude even more positivity than soldier boy did.

"You may call me by my locally designated name, claptrap!"

"Wonderful." Mordecai said.

Then people started shooting at them.


	2. Like a Battleground

"That went well!"

Mordecai poked a dead bandit with his toe and went back to looking for Bloodwing. What with the audio-visual hallucinations and being ambushed by really angry criminals, he just wasn't feeling it. Soldier Boy wouldn't shut up so he'd spent the last hour blatantly ignoring him between climbing debris and sniping people that were in his way. Lilith found this highly amusing.

"You're jealous of him." She whispered.

"I have no reason to be jealous of that lump."

"He's enthusiastic and hot."

"Don't pretend it doesn't get on your nerves."

Lilith shrugged. She didn't bother to deny it. She had even less use for the other man than Mordecai did. They didn't need him.

"Look, I found you this."

Mordecai pulled an SMG from his bag, it looked to be decent quality and from the specs it seemed capable of setting things on fire. He'd picked it up and thought Lilith would like it. Not that he was making up for being a prick or anything.

"Aw, you do care."

Lilith looked down the sights while Mordecai watched soldier boy prattle on to the local Doc. He couldn't hear a word the doctor, Zed, said but the other man may as well have been standing next to his ear. He had no inside voice.

So, he'd found a town but it wasn't much. The buildings were squat and round, like tents made of metal, and they had all gone to rust. There was rubbish everywhere, reaching critical density near the fences that circled the place. Everything smelt of mold and rotting meat. Even Mordecai could tell that the small village had been poor before it had become entirely impoverished and reduced to one, fairly mad person and his sizable graveyard. It was quiet. It was also almost uncomfortably familiar.

"Come on Mordy, let's try this out. It'll stop you being such a sad sack."

"Lead the way, milady."

* * *

It turned out skags were very ugly, very easy to take down but unfortunately also very high in numbers. The beasts looked a lot like dogs, though slightly hunch-backed and hairless, with thick, armour-like skin around their chests. Their eyes were red or orange, and their jaws were like nothing Mordecai had ever seen. They split right down the middle of the forehead, so the eyes could see behind their own heads. It made no sense. Mordecai was actually working to reload in a timely fashion and fire from the hip. It was a little bit challenging. This was, in turn, marvelous.

"Haha, boom! Mordecai shouted, landing a shot right down the gullet of a skag.

It exploded. There were revolver rounds sticking out of a piece of the flesh. Lilith had been right.

Mordecai turned towards her to see another skag leaping at him, on fire, jowls coated in saliva. He jumped sideways, reefing his arm away from the animal's claws. It turned to ash before it could so much as touch him. The remains turned to fine powder beneath his boot. Lilith was looking incredibly pleased with herself. She blew imaginary smoke off the end of her gun.

This is what Mordecai had been wanting. Fun. Marginally close calls. Free ammunition. Pyromania.

Bloodwing screeched above him. His bird was back.

"My satisfaction abounds." Mordecai said.

* * *

The dead town, Fyrestone, became their base of operations for the next weeks. Word on the vault was hard to find, and it turned out their road out was blocked. There wasn't much they could do until they earned a little money and figured out a way past the barricade, so Lilith and Mordecai contented themselves with running small jobs and getting more accustomed to the heat. Soldier boy had wandered out the front gate one day and not come back. Mordecai wasn't sure he would.

The lack of momentum was frustrating but Mordecai found that he couldn't fault his company, which was amazing because he'd been trying. She liked to brag about how good she was getting with her sub, and she'd taunt the skags even when they were within leaping distance. She'd even offered to dye his hair. He had actually taken her up on it. It was blue now, a nice visual contrast to her dark red locks. She was pushy and prickly.

He could work with her. He could actually trust her to be where she needed to be, to plan ahead and fight dynamically. She could also electrocute people now. Which was just so much fun for the pair of them. No one ever knew where to look when Mordecai was sniping a man a moment and Lilith was popping in and out of existence, leaving carnage in her wake. They were terrifyingly efficient.

They'd spent the last two days in skag gully, camping and looking for recordings that a local bandit leader had left behind. They needed the information and the boost to their wallets. The gully itself wasn't particularly hospitable, they hadn't been able to replace their water supplies since they'd arrived because what was on offer looked like sewage. It managed to be even dryer than the plains outside of Fyrestone, without much cover. They were both coated in dust and Lilith kept whining about stones in her boot. Mordecai felt limp from the heat.

There was also the fact that skags in the gully spat acid. That had been a very interesting learning experience.

There were also, also the rakk that liked to dive at them just when they were stopping for a rest but those went down easy with just one round of buckshot. They made for good eats. Bit gamey though.

"I dunno, I kinda like that they're chewy." Lilith said, munching on a piece of wing and looking satisfied.

"I wonder if they'd taste better marinated."

"They'd taste better if they were giant chickens. I'm just saying, I could learn to live with the texture."

They were sitting side by side, in front the fire they'd made out of dead wood and the clothes of the bandits they'd found dead. Their thighs were touching, the warmth welcomed as the sun finally began to dip in the sky. They'd found one audio recording. They could find the other after a rest.

"We need to get out of here, Mordy."

"I know."

"I was thinking, maybe we should take on some of the harder bounties. Nine toes is near here."

They'd both seen the posting for him. He was just a bandit but that meant that he'd have a whole camp full of buddies that they'd need to take out. It was a harder job, with higher risk and reward.

"Let me sleep on it, we may as well get that last recording before we move on to another job."

They were both tired. Mordecai was as used to seeing Lilith's manic grin as he was the dark circles under her eyes. The long stretches of sunlight weren't helping them get rest when they needed.

"Sounds good. I'll take the first watch."

"Never should've let you hang out with the solider boy."

"He was called Roland." She said, unbothered by the past tense.

Trust her to remember the other man's name.

* * *

Mordecai had underestimated Bone Head.

Lilith was pinned, ducked behind a piece of tin while she reloaded. Mordecai was trying to give her cover fire, but they'd spotted him and they weren't letting up. He couldn't get off shots fast enough and Bone Head was weaving like a drunk, which just made him harder to hit. Mordecai had already set the oil barrels in the camp on fire and managed to get one of them that way. He had a shield but it was moments away from failing on him.

The camp was small, to the west of Fyrestone. There weren't many places to hide. Mordecai was pinned. Even though he'd made it up the boardwalk the bandits used for keeping watch, it just meant there was nowhere for him to go. Not unless he left Lilith to die.

He was surprised at himself. He wasn't willing to do that. Even though Bone head was hiding behind the boulder at the center of his camp waiting for his shield to charge, while all his men kept Mordecai from attempting the same. Bloodwing couldn't put enough pressure on them to make a difference.

A bullet went through Mordecai's sleeve, piercing the muscle. The shock was enough to wind him. Then he saw Bone Head, as ugly a man as had ever lived, and realized that he was done. He shouldered his rifle once more, let off a round towards the other man's head and took three shots to the torso for his trouble. He was bleeding buckets, enough to slip in, and it was all he could do to pull his revolver and take pot shots at the people trying to kill him. Every part of him burned and shivered, and focused on the transcendent pain of each bullet wound.

He heard Lilith scream his name. She was running, hands bare of any weapon and her pretty face curled into a furious snarl. She hit the nearest man with her gloved fist, then winked out of existence with percussive blast. Mordecai could hear them all screaming.

He thought he might have hoped she'd kill them all, but in his last moments he found that all he wanted was for her to get out of there, safe.

* * *

Mordecai was dead. He hadn't gone quietly. He'd been shot to shreds and bled out. He'd had a hole in his lung, his belly, his shoulder. He knew that what had happened to him was not the sort of thing you came back from.

He was dead, so why was he in Fyrestone? In Fyrestone and staring at a pole.

He didn't move. He stood and waited, for the after-life or for hell. For anything but being back in Fyrestone after having left Lilith to die. Maybe he hadn't died after all, maybe he'd been a coward and just run away. He felt whole. How the hell could he be whole?

"Hey man, what you doing?"

He thought he recognized the voice.

"Hey, hey, you alright? Come on man, you're acting strange."

He was not alright. He just didn't know how to say it.

A hand touched his shoulder and it was all he could do not to draw his sword and cut it off.

"Lilith." Mordecai said.

And that was enough. He turned on his heel, ducking beneath the arm that was touching him, sprinting towards the gate to Fyrestone and out onto the road, back towards Bone Head's camp. His heart was racing, beating syncopated as all the adrenaline in his blood made him want to turn back. He couldn't hear anything but the roar of it and the sound of his own breath.

He found her in the middle of the camp, standing over Bone Head's corpse, firing upon the bandit with his own gun. Her eyes were red, her clothes a little worse for wear. She was streaked with dust and scratch marks, and she was so very beautiful.

She saw him and dropped her gun.

He grabbed her in his arms, clutching like she was his lifeline. She babbled his pet name, Mordy, over and over, Mordy, Mordy, Mordy. He told her he was sorry, and it was the first time he'd said sorry for anything, because he was so so sorry he had left her when she'd needed him. She muttered something about being fragile as glass, and not needing his help anyway.

"Bitch." He said. And, "I'm sorry."

"Doesn't matter." She replied.

Mordecai looked up to see Soldier Boy watching them, his eyes wide. Mordecai couldn't find it within himself to be embarrassed.

"I thought you'd bought it too."

"Well, I did but you know, I came back. That's what you paid the new-u station for."

He was looking at them both incredulously, because it turned out neither of them had listened to a word the claptrap had said on their first day and on Pandora, dying was not for keeps.

The pole he'd materialized in front of was called a new-u station and at new-u stations anyone with an account and some cash could be brought back from the dead. So Mordecai was simultaneously alive and poorer. It kind of took the shine off his miraculous resurrection.

"I think I need a drink." Mordecai muttered, looking from the station to his hands.

Soldier Boy, Roland, seemed to be perplexed by how affected Lilith and Mordecai were. The taller man hadn't stopped frowning since he'd found them in Bone Head's camp. Mordecai belatedly realized that Roland had been on the planet for much longer than they had and that the technology they were experiencing for the first time was something he was entirely used to. It wasn't just Pandora that was old hat to him; it was everything that came with conquering her in the first place. Which meant that he was either incredibly rich or part of an outfit that had cash to burn.

Mordecai had no idea what he was doing in Fyrestone, given either case. For the first time, Roland had his attention. A look at Lilith, whose face was drawn with tired, wary lines, told him that she was feeling much the same.

"Me too." She rasped. "Are you coming?"

Roland nodded, following slowly behind them.

* * *

They'd set up shop in one of the many abandoned houses in Fyrestone, choosing the least messy and most Spartan one that they could find. The house had little personality and wasn't cluttered with the bric a brac of dead families, like some of the others were. It was the least depressing choice in a sad bunch and, to its everlasting credit, had someone's liquor stash hidden under living-room tiles.

"Bags the gin." Lilith said, picking up a green bottle on the floor.

Mordecai went for the absinthe, wondering why he wasn't laughing at how Roland had to duck sideways to even fit in the front door. He dropped down onto the sunken coach, wondering what the other man would choose to drink. Lilith sat on the ground, legs crossed.

Roland picked up a whisky bottle and Mordecai found himself approving the choice.

"Here's to gun sales and immortality." Mordecai said, twisting the top off the bottle and drinking deep.

They got drunk very quickly, with Lilith making small talk and Mordecai not talking at all. Roland seemed wary of their sudden hospitality. Mordecai couldn't blame him but he also couldn't be bothered to comfort him. They'd been up for hours but night wasn't going to come for another day, so Lilith made her excuses and kissed Mordecai on the crown of his head before going to sleep off the alcohol in her room.

Roland and Mordecai were alone. Silent now that Lilith wasn't there. Roland, Soldier Boy, Roland was still attractive. Moreso after weeks of having no one to talk to but Lily-th and Zed. He didn't want to call himself desperate. So he decided to… not. Not do that.

"I died today."

Roland looked at him.

Mordecai let the empty bottle drop to the floor, pushed himself off the couch, staggered over to where Roland was sitting. He took the whisky from the other man's loose hand, took a belt. He was too pissed to tell if it was good or made in a rusted barrel. He put it down slowly, not trusting himself to stop it spilling. He sat down, knees either side of Roland's hips, seated on the other man's thighs. Roland might have looked uncomfortable and expectant. Even out of it, Mordecai could tell he was straight.

But there was nobody else.

"I died today."

"I know." Roland rested his hands on Mordecai's hips, rubbed his thumbs across the sharp bones.

Mordecai bit Roland's lip, held it between his teeth. He twisted his head to the side and then, because what else was he going to do, kissed him. And slowly though he went, Roland kissed him back.

Then Mordecai was between Roland's legs, trying to remember not to gag, trying to ignore the sharp pull of Roland's fingers on his hair. Then Roland's hands were on him, fingers searching and in the end Mordecai had to show him because it turned out Soldier Boy hadn't done that before. Which was weird, Mordecai told him.

It wasn't good. Mordecai wondered if he'd never been with a man before at all. But he just wanted… Something. So he rested his forehead on his arm and gritted his teeth and touched himself while Roland made confused sounds and shifted in and out of him. He thought of other times, in other places, with wilder men with sharper tongues and even though he couldn't have stood to be with any of them after the day he had had, it pushed him over the edge and into a weakly satisfying orgasm. Roland came almost as quietly, and was gentlemen enough not to rest his weight on Mordecai after.

Mordecai wasn't sure if he felt a lot better. Roland looked guilty.

"What about Lilith?" He asked, and Mordecai thought if any of them should look like a kicked dog it should've been himself and not the other man.

"What about her?" Mordecai asked.

He thought about pulling his pants up but couldn't muster the energy.

"Nevermind."

Roland was gone when Mordecai woke up, covered in a blanket and being toed by Lilith's boot.


	3. Chicks Dig Cars

Lilith laughed for what must've been half an hour. Mordecai glared at her for about the same.

"Your midlife crisis is getting drunk and sleeping with a guy who likes assault rifles."

"I never should have told you."

"Assault rifles suck!"

"I'm never confiding in you again, harpy."

"I love how your voice gets all smooth and serious when you're trying to act cool."

"My voice is always smooth."

"It's so cute because you're really crass and like to sleep with riflemen."

"Wait until you die, I'll give you no sympathy at all."

That sobered them both, finally. Mordecai knew it wasn't even true. Lilith frowned at him and shoved him further to the left on the couch so she could sit beside him.

"You're a killjoy." She reached up to pat his dreads. "You shouldn't be in such a shitty mood, Roland's hot."

"He has no idea what he's doing. If I'd been sober I'd have called it off before getting on my knees." Mordecai complained, still feeling hung-over and sore. "I didn't even get a blow job."

"No way! I mean, if I swung anywhere near his direction I'd be all over him. He must get laid all the time."

"There's no one to lay out here… Except Zed. And us."

"Maybe he's never gone prison gay before. Which is weird because…"

"He's obviously ex-army. Exactly. I told him that, I think. I remember telling him that."

Lilith raised her hands in resignation before reaching for her water flask and handing it to Mordecai. He took a belt and passed it back to her. She took a much more dainty sip from the rim.

"Maybe you can train him."

"I already have my bloodwing."

"No, train him to be a decent fuck buddy. It's not like he's got other options."

"I'm not sure he's too comfortable with the whole thing. He was acting funny after."

"Who can fathom the hearts of men?" Lilith asked, expecting no answer and receiving none.

* * *

Roland disappeared for about a week after Mordecai's brush with death and when he finally did come back, he avoided the other man almost entirely. Mordecai wasn't too bothered by it. He had other things to worry about.

Like Lilith turning into a bleeding fucking heart, spending all her time running errands for a blind man by the name of T.K. and dragging him along to do it. Mordecai did not like being up to his elbows in skags just to get a cripple some seeds. Lilith told him to nut up or shut up because he was being a useless prick. Mordecai told her that her hair looked stupid and after that she just ignored him.

"Well it's just so plum sweet of you to help out an old blind man." T.K. told them, his voice kind and wavering. "Means so much to me."

"We don't mind, we have other jobs out in the gully, so it's not out of our way."

This was a filthy lie.

"I'll make you some of my famous stew when the crops come in, you and your friend are more'n welcome to as much as you like."

"I'd really like that, thanks."

T.K Baha was a mad-looking thing, with a thin neck and a chin too big for his face. He only had one leg, so how he managed to get anything done was a huge mystery to Mordecai. Lilith seemed to find his baby bird-like proportions endearing and his folksy thoughtfulness even moreso.  
She spent more and more time with the old coot as the days went by, usually when Mordecai was out training (playing) with Bloodwing. It was like watching an old couple gossip. Mordecai was convinced that they never learned anything off each other that wasn't useless to know.

"I learned something new today." Lilith sing-songed.

"Did you, now." Mordecai said, keeping his eye on the skillet he was cooking their dinner on.

"T.K. talks to Roland."

"Mn." Which meant, I do not care, in the least.

"Roland tells him all the little things going on in his life because they're super good friends."

"Blind leading the blind."

"Turns out, one of T.K's friendssss, that he wouldn't nammeee, feels really bad about sharing some loving with another man's woman."

Mordecai almost dropped his pan in the fire.

"He feels really, really bad about it because the couple's very close and he thinks the boyfriend is a stand up gal, I mean, guy."

"That fucking asshole."

"I think that makes you the girl, Mordy!"

Then she dissolved into giggles, hands curled around her side and feet kicking little kicks back and forth.

Mordecai felt ready to kill Roland. With his bare hands. And then when the fucker came back he was going to do it again and again until he ran out of money and was dead for real. Soldiers were so fucking stupid.

"You made Roland have a meta-sexual crisis! Crises for everyone!"

Mordecai dumped the pan next to the fire, leaving Lilith to deal with it once she got over her fit of glee. He stalked outside of camp, called Bloodwing down from the sky and looked into the xenobird's clever, beady eyes.

"Roland." He said.

Bloodwing took off screeching.

* * *

"Roland!" Mordecai bellowed, stomping into the other man's threadbare, obvious camp.

Roland had no cover and clearly no idea of how to hide himself. Tracking him had been woefully easy. Mordecai was surprised nobody else had managed to find him first. His tent was green, for fuck's sack. Green on a plateau of brown and brown and shit-brown. It was like he wanted to get shot.

"Heyyy, there." Roland said, cracking an awkward smile and trying to look casual. "Fancy seeing you here."

Mordecai kicked him in the thigh. Then he kicked him in the shin. Roland looked at him like he was mad.

"Stop telling people I'm fucking around on Lilith. I'm not fucking around on Lilith, I'm not fucking her at all."

"Wait, what? You're kidding."

"Town with five people and you're still trying to spread gossip like it's horse shit."

"Stop kicking me, you damn psycho."

Mordecai did. But only because Roland sounded like he thought Mordecai was being unreasonable and that was obviously not the case. He was being the most reasonable man alive.

"So, you're not steady with Lilith?"

"You are the stupidest man."

"So she's single?"

"She's bent like a square-rule."

Roland looked thwarted, which was really frustrating.

"Sorry, sorry, it's just… Lilith's a nice girl, I felt like a real ass… Sleeping with you, while we were drunk. I thought I'd fucked things up for the two of you."

"Your morals can now sleep the sleep of the righteous. Now stop telling T.K. you slept with me."

"You know Baha?"

"Lilith knows Baha. I endure their prattle because Lilith's my partner."

Roland gave Mordecai a disappointed look, like he'd been searching for something and hadn't found it. Mordecai had no idea what it might have been. Putting up with small talk and a distinct lack of progress since he'd gotten to Pandora was sapping his supremely limited will to care. Just because Roland had to go off on one about his misguided feelings didn't mean Mordecai had to do the same.

"Well, he's a nice guy… Is all."

"What does that have to do with the price of tea? He's full of goodness and light; you stop running off at the mouth. Lilith won't shut up about it."  
Roland, finally, looked a little chastened.

"I swear to god…" He was never fucking a straight guy ever again. "You can't keep living out here, you stick out like dog's balls."

Mordecai didn't know why he was saying it, it wasn't as if he really wanted Roland to come back.

* * *

"So, I think we should see if we can jump the chasm like Scooter says we can. His cars handle like shit but we can make it work."

Mordecai had less faith than Lilith did but he was more than willing to try. They'd been in Fyrestone for far too long. It was past time to leave. The bounties had finally dried up and they were all left with nothing but an ever-diminishing pile of liquor bottles to pass the time. Scooter was a hick with a love for dangerously souped up cars and it spoke to how few options they had that they were taking work from him.

"I have one point that I feel I must interject with." Mordecai said, "Those cars have two seats."

Lilith gave him a blunt look.

"Oh, leave the sniper behind, tell me how that works out for you."

"No, we have to leave Roland behind."

"Hey!" Roland yelped, surprised.

"Needs to be you, babe. I'll need Mordecai with me to keep them occupied at the barricade long enough for me to get the gate open. So long as you're waiting there, the two of us will be able to flank them before they get to Mordecai and fill his delicate body with holes."

Roland blushed. Lilith had been doing that a lot lately. Her speech lingering on the slightest of innuendos and every possible mention she could make of Mordecai's actually entirely manly and robust frame. He would've appreciated it more if he hadn't been spending his free time trying not to sleep with Roland. It was hard given all the time they'd been spending tipsy and bored.

"So now might be a good time to do that yours…"

"Silence, woman." Mordecai said, Bloodwing ready on his arm and hissing at her.

"I can wait behind the gate." Roland said, recovering. "But I'm the only one of us with any long-term experience with these runners. Are you sure you can even make it over the gulch?"

Mordecai wasn't. Lilith was. In the end they decided Lilith would drive, Mordecai would take the gunner's seat. Roland would linger behind like a fish turd.

"I dislike this plan." Mordecai told Lilith, when finally they put sole to pedal and doubt had time to sink in.

"This is going to be fun!" She replied, ignoring him entirely and hitting the turbo, driving so fast Mordecai was surprised the skin hadn't peeled off his face.

They ditched the car when they got within eye sight of the gate. They needn't have bothered. Mordecai could only see three men total, and he was sure that he could pick them off. Lilith waited for him to shoulder his sniper and get the first mark within his sights.

"Good luck." He said, and she was gone, running ahead in that twilight world she'd told him she could go to whenever she disappeared from theirs.

The first man went down with one shot to the head, jolting before he slumped down. Mordecai had the second between the crosshairs before he had more than time to turn. He winged him, then his third shot missed as the man ducked.

Mordecai reloaded, breath even while his heart beat faster. He flicked his wrist and Bloodwing swept down shrieking. The man was torn from throat to belly and that left one.

He heard squealing. It was one of the tiny ones, the absolutely mad ones that ran in with no regard for personal safety. They were unsettling. So Mordecai shot that one too. Down it's squealing mouth. It was an incredibly unsatisfying end to days of consideration. Lilith appeared by the gate and shrugged at him, hitting the controls so at least Roland could join them, shouting that everything was clear.

Mordecai heard growling and realized that he had missed something very important.

A skag had snuck up on him. The biggest skag he had ever seen.

"FUCK!" Mordecai yelled, pulse racing, raising his rifle to take a pot shot before the skag sent him flying with one bat of his paw.

Mordecai's shield held, barely.

He dropped his sniper rifle, promising himself he'd come back for it and drawing his revolver. He aimed for the eyes, running backwards and trying to keep just a moment ahead of the beast. He hit the left socket and the beast screeched at him, leaving lines of ropey saliva over his chest. It was hot, almost burning against his skin. It's left eye was a bloody mess but the wound had not slowed the creature down. It huffed. Charged.

He sprinted towards the car, thinking that if he at least made it to the driver's seat he could mow the fucking thing down. He could feel its breath on his neck and wondered if this would be how he'd die again. Mordecai hoped he had enough money in the bank to pay for a trip back. Hoped he wouldn't get drunk and proposition Roland again this time too.

"Does this hurt?!" The skag was gone from behind him, in its place was Lilith, thrusting her hands in front of her propelling the monster away from them with her not-magic.

Mordecai was firing as soon as he saw her, hitting the creature's soft belly now that he could see it. Roland was suddenly beside him, throwing down a turret that Mordecai hadn't known he owned, one that generated a shield. Roland gave him a swift, worried look, like he wasn't sure how Mordecai would take the help.

"Handy?" He said.

Roland wrapped a hand around his neck and pressed a swift kiss to his lips. Then he let go and ran for the skag.

"The fuck?" Mordecai asked.

* * *

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…"

"Mmmm."

"Ah, watch your teeth…"

Screwing around with Roland was like trying to stop smoking cigs. There'd be one in your hand right after you said you quit. Well, he'd sworn off every having sex with him again and not only was he about to break that vow, this time he was sober. It was just something about working together and staring at each other's asses all day while running god awful bounties. Now that they were in the Badlands the skags were five times the size and the bandits were even madder. Something had to give and it was this.

"Will you still respect me in the morning?" Roland asked, lipping at Mordecai's ear.

"No." He replied.

* * *

Author's note: Additional (explicit content) in this chapter is available at /works/285487/chapters/563950 if you are of age.


End file.
